Food News.

This time we’re shipping the boxes directly from Great Harvest (so you can smell the bakery when you open each one!) It’s a LOT of work – more than we realized – but there’s also satisfaction in processing orders too. Assembly line style!

In other foodie news, SAY Media [who I am working with for BERF!] just published this Eat This Map of the foodie world! Such a cool concept! I’m excited to see KERF included : ) Looks to me like I’m coming out of a pile of oats!

Where’s Waldo!?

Dinner tonight was fab!!

Hillary brought over this cold sesame noodles recipe made with chicken and red pepper and it was incredible!!! Best cold noodles I’ve ever had. She adapted the recipe to suit her taste (which included leaving out the scallions for me : ) ) and gave me permission to share the recipe. It makes a ton, so be forewarned!

Hillary’s Cold Sesame Noodles

(serves 10)

1/4 cup sesame seeds

1 (16 ounce) package linguine or fettuccine

1/3 cup peanut oil (or canola or vegetable)

1/3 cup soy sauce

1/3 cup rice wine vinegar

1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

3 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons lime juice (or the juice of half a lime)

½ teaspoon ground ginger

½ teaspoon garlic salt

Red pepper flakes to taste

¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

3 cooked chicken breasts (about 1.5 pounds), cubed or shredded

1 finely chopped red pepper

Directions

Heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Add sesame seeds, and cook stirring frequently until lightly toasted. Remove from heat, and set aside.

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, or until al dente. Drain pasta, and rinse under cold water until cool. Transfer to a large bowl. Add a drizzle of peanut oil to keep the noodles from sticking together.

Pour sesame dressing over pasta, and toss to coat evenly. Gently mix in chicken and red pepper. If chilling overnight, use half the dressing the day you make it, and stir in the second half of the dressing right before serving. The pasta soaks up a lot of the dressing overnight, so this way your pasta won’t be too dry.

Right before serving, add an extra squeeze of lime and stir.

We added some parsley for green garnish. I loved that the noodles were chopped and therefore really easy to chomp!

And we took our bowls down to the tele to watch some LOST! We have 3 episodes left in season 3 – and the plot keeps on thickening!!!

My contribution to the potluck (other than some extra bell pepper) was some Jeni’s Ice Cream!

Brown Butter Almond Brickle. The brickle part was incredible! I still love Salted Caramel the best ; ) The three of us doing pretty well working off a pint.

Cute mug was a Christmas gift from Faith! I believe her mom made it and I love the shape and color! It held a paperwhite bulb that I grew for a while and it has just now turned into a serving dish.

OMG! And here people have been implying that I was crazy my entire life when there are no tails left on my plate after a shrimp meal. They are my favorite part of the shrimp – I like the crunch. I have never known another person who eats shrimp tails, so I assumed it was a weird personal preference. 🙂

Ooh, the recipe for cold sesame noodles sounds really delicious! And I’m always very excited when I already have all of the ingredients for a new recipe on hand – so convenient. PS You must have pretty good self-control if you haven’t already polished off the Jeni’s – those are pretty small containers and seem to disappear quite fast when I’ve got one in my freezer, haha 🙂

I am glad Hillary shared the recipe, because as soon as I saw the bowls and read you saying it was great I already wanted to ask for that! My son likes all kinds of Asian flavors and he likes pasta, so this looks like something he would totally enjoy!
I love the blue mug, it is beautiful!
Kath, is there a way I could order just 1 bag of granola instead of the 3 that comes in open sky? I would love to try it, and even though we love granola around here (me in particular!) I am afraid three bags would be too much for just the three of us (and mostly only me and my 9 year old son consume it).
Thanks!
Ana

I’m so excited about the granola! I ordered mine the second I saw it yesterday morning. I was wondering if you’ve ever tried to freeze any of it. While I certainly could eat three entire bags of it myself in a short period of time, I probably shouldn’t. 🙂 I’m wondering what the best way is to keep it fresh as long as possible.

I think you may have me convinced that I need to order some of your granola. I have been making my own and just made 3 batches Sunday to fill orders from my kids, family and friends. Something about granola just makes me happy, both making it and eating it. Thanks for the noodle recipe, adding it to the make soon (like maybe today) list. Love the map, it certainly would be fun to jump into a big pile of oats or maybe a big pile of granola!

I live in Japan and ship food internationally all the time. You do have to fill out a customs form. I just write “snacks” and haven’t had any trouble. I have a US military overseas address, but I don’t think it makes a difference. I ship snacks to my brother (a missionary near the Ukraine) and haven’t had any trouble either. But maybe since you are a business there is more red tape? Who knows. The government doesn’t make anything easy. 🙂

I remember being so enthralled with watching Lost as well. Eric and I rushed through 3 fulls seasons in 1.5 weeks since we were sick at home. I can now perfectly imitate “Bad Robot”. It drove me batty by the end of season 3.

I made the noodle bowl with ingredients I had on hand not five minutes after reading this post. It was fantastic today for lunch in my cube at work. Thank you as always for the simple and delicious food!